


Sacrifice

by ShadowHaloedAngel



Series: Then and Now [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Internal Monologue, Other, WWII, pre-serum steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-02-07 14:18:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1902180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowHaloedAngel/pseuds/ShadowHaloedAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The war is only just starting to change everything, and the realisations it brings to a sickly Steve Rogers leave a bitter taste in his mouth. But that is no excuse to stand by and let other men do the duty which is his just as much as theirs, no matter what cirumstances may dictate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sacrifice

War was everywhere already, which was strange in a way. It had been building for so long, in fact, it had been fought for so long already on the other side of the world that the sudden ballooning of information was a bit of a shock to the system. Other than that it had more or less been footnotes before. What Steve found the most interesting was that despite the entire reason they were entering this war being the attack on Pearl Harbour by the Japanese airforce, people were being urged to sign up and go to fight in Europe.

Suddenly this scrap a thousand miles away which had been something they wanted nothing to do with was being conflated with a threat to the whole nation and her interests. while that was certainly true, there wasn't any immediately obvious link between Japan and Germany that Steve could see. Not that it really mattered to him anyway, it came down to the same thing in the end: bullying. Bullies could be people, groups, nations... and that was something that was often forgotten. Bullying was a term associated with children, with playground squabbles over stupid things and the loss of lunch money, but as far as he was concerned, that didn't matter. Why was scale important when it boiled down to the same thing?

Steve Rogers had no patience for those who picked on and exploited people weaker than them. Unfortunately there were very few people weaker than him. He had never let that be an excuse though, much to Bucky's exasperation. He'd once heard a phrase from one of the nuns which had stuck with him a very long time: a coward dies a thousand deaths, a brave man only one. And while Bucky's attitude to that was a little more pragmatic than his own (which, as his friend never ceased to remind him, wasn't difficult), Steve was starting to get pretty expert in cheating death.

There was already a chill in the air as he walked down the street, and he could feel a warning crackle in his lungs. Nevertheless he breathed deeply. He had to keep going... there was the movie theatre, hey, maybe he could stop in there. It wasn't too much for a ticket and at least he could stay warm for a few hours before he headed back to the apartment. Maybe it would be their last night tonight, he wasn't sure. Bucky had chosen to enlist, and while he was proud, there was a part of Steve which was driven a little mad by that. 

Bucky was a good man, the best, and Steve knew he would be a great soldier, a real hero who would make a difference and save lives... but he wanted to go with him, and that wasn't about Bucky, it wasn't about not wanting to be apart from the man who had been like a brother to him over the years. Bucky was the best man Steve had ever met, and, more than anything, Steve just wanted the chance to be equal.

He had never been equal - poor health had seen to that, and it would be poor health which stopped him going to the front, which stopped him offering the same sacrifice as everyone else was doing. There was a fair chance he wouldn't be threatened with too much in the way of reprisals, since you didn't exactly have to look at him for more than a second to determine that a brisk wind would knock him off his feet. What frustrated him was the idea of being valued as less, being given the chance to do less... because if they were making that sacrifice, then he was not worth more than them enough that he was worth being sacrificed for, and that was what staying at home meant, that was what staying where it was safe meant. That is what it meant to him to not join up.

His father had been a great man, by all accounts, at least before he'd disappeared into the bottle. At the very least his mother had thought so anyway, and it was her opinion that mattered most to him. There had been plenty of men lost to the last war, and that wasn't a story that was told simply by the battle casualties. Even the men who had come back in body like his father had been left shattered in mind. Steve had grown up feeling the consequences and the weight of that sacrifice every day and he knew he had the right and the responsibility to make it, same as everyone else, not because he was more or less than the next man, but because he was the same.


End file.
